


if ever there was a doubt

by streetlightsky



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3891931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetlightsky/pseuds/streetlightsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Grant mistakes Jemma as his girlfriend and one time he fixes his blunder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if ever there was a doubt

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [this prompt](http://streetlightsky.tumblr.com/post/118333909544/biospecialist-i-have-amnesia-and-you-say-youre). AU. No SHIELD/Hydra/Inhuman stuff to be seen anywhere. Characters don't belong to me. Errors, grammatical or factual, intended or not, do belong to me.

_i.[  
](http://streetlightsky.tumblr.com/post/118333909544/biospecialist-i-have-amnesia-and-you-say-youre)_

When the nurse said she would call his emergency contact, Grant did not expect a tiny, flustered girl wearing one of the hospital’s lab coats to come down. Her hair flew loose behind her shoulders as she strode inside with a displeased, but rather amusing expression.

“You know, when I told you to visit me at work, I didn’t mean like this,” she remarked. Grant didn’t know what she was talking about. He was too busy trying to recall when his medical files actually listed an emergency contact since extricating himself out of his family’s web of lies. That and the fact that the apparent familiar stood right against the bed’s barrier and had no qualms about touching.

He did. Holy hell, he did, especially if he did not initiate said physical contact. But with her, whoever she was, he let her grip the heel of his hand without protest or resistance.

“So, what happened? Hmm? Was it that Kaminsky guy again because I swear, if you—”

“Can I ask you a stupid question?”

She stopped, peered at him with as much perplexity as he currently felt, and then nodded. A finger traced a vein up his arm and he didn’t even flinch.

“Who are you?”

Her face dropped and Grant almost regretted asking when she retreated behind the rail. His hand twitched, but instead of reaching out to drag her back in, he curled his fingers into a fist. He needed answers, he reminded himself, and not physical comfort like a petulant child.

She opened her mouth, paused, and turned sharply when another stethoscope- and white coat-clad professional knocked on the door to exclaim, “Amnesia? Really?”

He let the intellectuals exchange words while resettling in bed. His concussed, beating head couldn’t take much more medical babble anyway. Not that it mattered much. With no existing treatment to solve the problem, everything was a waiting game now.

The physician gave him a perfunctory smile and obligatory words of encouragement before nodding and disappearing again. The girl—still nameless—closed the door behind him only to waltz back to his bedside, smack him on the shoulder, and lower the handrail.

“You’re an idiot,” she muttered before shooing him with her hand. He moved automatically, making room for her petite self to sit by him. He could feel where their bodies touched, but didn’t mind.

He wanted to know why.

If they could just get a few minutes alone without being interrupted by healthcare personnel, that is. Then, maybe he would remember things, get out of this ridiculous hospital gown, and be done with this whole circus. But the nerdy-looking tech knocked and wheeled his computer cart right through the doorway requesting that they speak in private to collect his personal information.

The girl didn’t even budge.

“My head’s a little… messed up right now,” he clarified with a wince. “So if you don’t mind, I kind of need my girlfriend to—”

“What?”

“What?”

He looked at her like he had inadvertently offended her in some way. She stared at him like he had suddenly grown another head.

“Oh. Oh, god. We’re not, um… like that,” she squawked. “We’re just friends, Grant. Yes, just, um… purely platonic. Is all.” He wanted to believe her—had no reason not to—but couldn’t help staring at the incriminating evidence of her arm resting against his leg. When her gaze followed, she quickly removed the limb and placed it back into her own lap.

That didn’t explain why she called him by his first name and he felt at ease enough to let her.

“But yes, as his emergency contact, I should probably stay for assistance due to his current medical condition,” she directed at the tech. The employee could only accede.

She answered the questions better than he could ever in his state of mind and doled them out quick as if she was trying to get rid of the third party. For whose sake and what purpose, he didn’t know, but was grateful for the haste.

“Sorry about that,” he said when they were alone again.

“It’s fine.”

Her ducked head and pursed lips said otherwise.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” he reminded. She rolled her eyes, but smiled.

“I’m Jemma.”

 

 

_ii._

Despite his mental impairment, Grant adjusted relatively well to his unfamiliar environment. The concussion made his short-term memory a little foggy, but other than that, he caught along fine—forgetting his apartment number only once and learning most faces Jemma reintroduced him to.

The pounding headaches were another story. Names and places were easy to process, but the more complicated matters didn’t stick well. Grant couldn’t hit the bed at night without that buzzing feeling in his forehead and subsequently lost hours of sleep trying to subside the ache while attempting to remember the missing years of his life. Painkillers were and would always be out of the question.

Jemma visited every night since his discharge. She frowned at his choices, took the remote away, and brought over his favorite takeout foods with the same patronizing look each time.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her one night they found themselves on the couch with paper plates and playing a maddening new version of 20 Questions.

“Who else is going to help you out and make sure you don’t set back your own recovery?”

“And I’m grateful. But it’s not necessary.” He set his dinnerware down and sighed. “Really, I can just… figure things out myself. And you can... do whatever it is that you want to do rather than patronize me.”

She sneered, but appeared to contemplate his words. He could sense her hesitation. She didn’t look wounded per say but uncharacteristically reticent dealing with the different person he was with his amnesia.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t really have anywhere else to be.”

It was the accompanying look that got him: the pursed lips again, sad eyes, disappointed expression that made Grant regret ever bringing the subject up. It was the same face she sported when he couldn’t grasp the memory she prompted—something he knew was important and that he would usually never forget but at the moment just couldn’t remember.

Something swelled in his chest and Grant had an inexplicable urge for physicality. Maybe to hit something because it was in his nature to do so after what his family put him through. But he doubted that would be appropriate in this case or solve any of the issues at hand.

He swallowed the brutal inclination and gently placed a hand on her knee instead. She smiled—a small but sweet beam of light. Grant would think even with amnesia, he couldn’t ever forget such a thing of beauty.

“Now stop deflecting and answer the question,” she prodded.

He groaned. “No, I don’t remember this… Kara girl,” he stated. “Should I? How important is she?”

Jemma snickered. “She was your last girlfriend, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re much better off now than when you were with her.” He looked at her pointedly, but she did not acquiesce. “I swear!”

“You didn’t like her?”

“I didn’t dislike her. I just knew you two wouldn’t work out,” she informed as a matter of fact. “She was at least more tolerable than Lorelei. I don’t even know what you were thinking with that woman.” Her disapproval showed all over her face—scowl, scrunched nose, everything. “Told you from day one she wasn’t good for you, but did you listen? No. And then look what happened.”

Grant in fact did not remember what happened, nor did he care much to do so. The whole topic of his ex-girlfriends was a strange one to breach, but watching Jemma so animated was worth it. She really did seem to know everything about him and apparently was someone he trusted enough to allow her input in his relationships.

“You’re really invested in this,” he commented with a hint of ridicule. “Almost sounds like you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous!” she exclaimed in protest. “I am absolutely not jealous whatsoever. I don’t even know why you would think that. You’re just an idiot for choosing to date all the wrong people.”

He laughed—the deep, wholehearted, chest-rumbling type. “No, I’m just saying, you’re really protective of me,” he said. “It’s nice.”

She could not have looked less convinced and he grinned. “You’re horrible.”

“I’m serious,” he insisted, sobering a little from his amusement. “You know about my past with my family and that I do remember. It’s kind of nice to know that it hasn’t ruined everything. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about it, let alone my girlfriend.”

Her eyes flew up in alarm and stared at him like they had before. Grant recalled the expression—not something from the time missing in his mind but of late.

And then, “Um, we’re… not together. Remember?”

He stared at her, at his hand resting on her knee, at their bodies shifted closer to each other since they had sat down. The ostensibly natural assumption didn’t feel wrong, but according to her—who Grant still had no reason to doubt—it was.

Acknowledging his blunder, he withdrew slightly and apologized. Jemma looked down at her lap.

“Honest mistake,” she offered. “Maybe if you’d take something for your headaches—”

“If you know me like you say you do”—she rolled her eyes—“then you know it’s not gonna happen.”

Bearing that adorable yet exasperated smile, she shook her head and sighed. “You’re ridiculous.”

 

 

_iii._

Every once in a while, Grant remembered some piece here, a flash there. They weren’t full scenes—contexts completely cut from the hazy visions—but at least it was progress. Moving into his apartment. Watching the Red Sox win the World Series. Throwing his phone across the room after making the mistake of answering a call from his mother.

Jemma beamed at him when he made some random association during her excruciating mind games that he almost considered lying on the next question to keep her happy. He probably could’ve pulled it off too, even if only for a little while.

Still, the slow process agitated him. Following a leave of absence from work, his days were filled with nothing but time spent trying to recall his misplaced memories. Worse, he was pretty much secluded given that everyone seemed like strangers. Grant never had much of a problem with isolation when it was on his terms. Separation due to amnesia, however, was not an option he ever entertained.

After his appointment at the hospital, he found Jemma waiting in the main lobby between two substantially taller others. She looked relaxed despite her tiny stature—completely at home beside the company she kept.

Grant wished he could feel the same way.

“Grant!” she greeted. “You remember—”

“Trip. And… Bobbi, right?” While it had been too much too soon then, he still retained most of the relearned information the first time Jemma tried to reintegrate him into the world. According to her, they were his better choice of friends, whatever that meant.

They seemed like good people, though, and received him the way he imagined: nods of acknowledgement, a friendly handshake from the male, calling him by his last name. Jemma, with the same warm grin plastered on her face, tugged his arm down the hallway towards the cafeteria.

Lunch was nice—as good as above average hospital food and a semi-foreign group would probably get. But Grant knew what Jemma was trying to do. Removing him from his solitude, the stories and additional assistance, her bright and expectant eyes, it was all for him.

Grant tried, he did, but he would float in and out of their accounts—stuck between the elusive past and much more attractive present. When Bobbi and Trip would tell him places he had been, things they had done together, he looked to Jemma for confirmation. And while her shining enthusiasm and encouragement subdued his reservations, it also made him feel disturbingly guilty when nothing sparked or connected in his mind.

The one thing he seemed to despise more than not remembering was disappointing her.

So what else could he do but play along when her tactic unfortunately yielded no effect. Grant wasn’t too interested in the charade, but to make Jemma happy, he would endure. To keep her warm and pleasant, bubbly and conversant, and leaning into his side with giggling effervescence, there was little he wouldn’t do.

In the midst of a bout of giggles, loose hair fell over her face and his hand moved on automatic—lifting to brush the wavy strands back behind her ear. It was instinct; Grant didn’t even think anything of it until three pairs of stunned eyes appeared uneasy in the awkward scene.

He heard her words again. The fresh memories where she insisted on their platonic relationship registered clearly now, but only after the fact. Hardening under the weight of his gaffe, Grant recoiled. His apology, though, was left unspoken when Jemma’s phone rang and she excused herself to answer.

Her momentary absence left him with two suddenly severe and not-so-friendly-looking comrades.

“Did you hit your head that hard or are you just being rude now?” Bobbi reproached.

“Yeah, man. Even I didn’t think you’d go there,” Trip continued.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“God, if Jemma wasn’t standing over there and you didn’t have a head injury, I’d throttle you for that.” Grant didn’t know whether it was reassuring or disconcerting to find out that his supposed friends were as aggressively inclined as he was. “Listen, Ward. You? And her”—his gaze followed Bobbi’s nudge towards Jemma near the exit—“You guys are not dating. Are we clear?”

He stared contemplatively at them. The notion was resolute; their stern and agitated expressions told him so. And Grant, well… Grant didn’t know them, didn’t implicitly trust them like he did with Jemma. But if these two were doing one thing right that he approved of, it was protecting their mutual friend the way he felt—he knew—he would without hesitation.

“Yeah, we’re clear.”

 

 

_iv._

“So, is this something we do often?”

“Frequent bars? No. But vet Skye’s questionable dates? Absolutely.”

Grant hadn’t met this Skye person yet as she was more Jemma’s friend than his. That, however, didn’t stop the young scientist from towing him along on this outing. A protest lied somewhere in his throat as he doubted his missing memories included a revolutionary change in heart about boisterous social environments, but he swallowed the objection watching Jemma come out in a simple but tasteful white dress for the night.

Maybe a couple of hours where she wasn’t grilling him to remember things wouldn’t be so bad.

Meeting Skye was a surprise—most likely due to the fact that he, even with the head trauma, couldn’t see how Jemma would be friends with a girl like that. His urge to separate and hover was only quelled by the easy smile on his companion’s face and the beer he nursed while listening to the nonstop rambles of the other woman.

How anyone enjoyed these types of scenes, he didn’t know. Not even the alcohol could drown out the sheer decadence involved. Still, Grant kept on a lighter face given the number of times Jemma glanced over with that pointed look, telling him to do something.

He wondered how far he could take it before she got visibly upset with him.

When she stood, he moved to follow suit, but was hit with that same potent glare, silently demanding him to sit back down.

“Skye and I are just going to freshen up a bit,” she announced, pulling her friend up to her feet. “You boys can talk about… whatever it is that you talk about.”

Grant watched as the crisp hemline of her dress disappeared around the corner of the bar—leaving him with yet another stranger he had minimal interest in getting to know. This Lincoln guy was not going to miraculously jog his memory or trigger any meaningful revelations. In fact, it had taken Grant all of five seconds to see that his interest in Skye was transitory at best.

“So, you’ve known Jemma a long time?”

He looked at the younger blonde with unamused deterrence. And here he was expecting the guy to talk about Skye, not his date.

“Apparently she worked with a lot of the professors at the medical school I go to. She’s sort of a legend around there. Nice to finally meet her in person.” Grant stared in stone-cold silence and decidedly not liking where he knew this conversation was going. “Thought if I—”

“You thought wrong,” he stated, dark and more menacing than he actually intended. The heat in his chest spread with pulsating intensity—disgusted at the audacity this guy had for considering the possible fruits of his manipulation.

“Look, I’m just—”

“I don’t care. I don’t know who the hell you are and I don’t care what you do,” Grant snapped. “But if you try anything, if you so much as even look at her the wrong way, I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to make your life a liv—”

“Whoa, Jesus. Take it easy,” Lincoln said, putting his hands up in defense. “I thought she was single. Isn’t that why Skye brought us here? She didn’t tell me you and Jemma were together.”

“We’re not.”

The irritation in Jemma’s voice matched her expression as both men turned at her resounding reentrance. Grant released the tension in his clenched fists and bit back any rationalizations on his tongue while she stood there agape in perhaps the worst way possible.

It hit him like a freight train—falling back down to reality and realizing his error. Being so wrapped up in the moment with antagonistic fervor and protective anger, he had forgotten, again. And the fact that it took time for the truth to sink in, that his reaction still somehow felt just made Jemma’s disapproving look all the more difficult to bear.

“What’s going on?” Skye asked, appearing wildly bewildered at the three of them as she rejoined the group.

The truth? Grant had no idea.

 

 

_v._

Nothing was clear or certain to Grant anymore since waking up from the hospital. His head seemed messed up in more ways than one and all that did was land him in trouble with the one person that remained relatively constant in his world of confusion.

The problem with amnesia was not in fact remembering, but rather, forgetting and Grant paid that price each and every time his slipups put Jemma in an uncomfortable position. She had looked at him with such hope for his recovery, but now there was simply desperation—praying for the return of the man that probably didn’t fly off the handle, assume too much, and act on impulse.

He wanted to be that guy again. For his sake and everyone’s, if not just for her. Grant despised the feeling of helplessness and lack of control, but what he could not stand was the dismay in her eyes and the knowledge that he had put it there. The thought that not only was he not enough, but that he was also wrong frustrated him to no end. But he couldn’t help the way he felt, how his instincts automatically took over.

Not when she did things like leave her apartment door open for anyone to break into.

“And what about you! How could you do this to me!”

“Okay, you’re seriously making this a bigger deal than it is. I did you a favor. It’s not my fault that you won’t make the moves—”

“I am not taking advantage of him when he can’t remember—”

Grant inhaled and knocked on the door then, pushing it wide to stop the discussion before he heard too much. The girls inside fell silent with their alarmed expressions as he revealed himself. “If you want to have a private conversation, you probably shouldn’t leave your door open.”

Skye ducked while grabbing her things to make a quick exit. “You guys should talk. Catch up. Whatever. I’ll call you later.” She shot Jemma a knowing look—lifted eyebrows and everything so much that Grant was sure Skye made it discernible to him on purpose. “Ward,” she acknowledged before darting out.

Alone together now, Jemma looked anxious, uneasy. Like she wanted nothing more than to flee, to be done with him. Grant resented that despite knowing its presence was his fault. It had everything to do with what happened a couple of nights ago, but he also knew now that her trepidation extended beyond his lapse of judgment.

“Look, Grant, I know you aren’t feeling well and I’m doing my best to help, but I’ve—”

“Can I just ask you one question?” he interrupted. She winced, but assented; he could almost sense her dread. “Why not?”

It was unfair to put this on her, but Grant didn’t know how much longer he could cope with the mistakes and mixed signals. Had they all been there before his injury, he certainly didn’t remember. Had he not felt that way or somehow refused, he could only assume. But regardless, he deserved to know why it was that those feelings seemed to come out so intrinsically that he had to be reminded of their apparent nonexistent nature.

“We’re just… not,” she muttered, looking away. “We’re just friends, Grant.”

“My friends don’t call me that,” he countered, not rudely but as a matter of fact. “Even with my current head, you know that I know that. Everyone calls me Ward. You call me Grant.”

“That’s your name…”

“It is. But that doesn’t explain why I let you touch me as often and freely as you do when everyone else stands a good foot away from me most of the time.” She gaped and all he could do was continue. “Or that you’re my emergency contact at the hospital even though I know I left that field blank after I turned eighteen. And the fact that you know the names of all my ex-girlfriends and my favorite foods and that the only thing that gets me worse than not remembering is letting you down.”

“Grant…”

“Tell me,” he said, nearly ordered. “Tell me why that is.”

She gulped, pained and distraught by the number of accusations he had hurled at her. “You’re my best friend.” The tick in her voice, though, gave something else away—told him more than all the things she had said trying to restore his memory. “I’m just your best friend.”

Grant wished more than he ever did at that point that he could remember. That he could understand what he had done, the kind of person he was for people like Bobbi and Trip to have strong reactions and objections to his perhaps not-so-inadvertent intentions towards her, the reason he never felt genuinely sorry for confusing her as his girlfriend.

He stepped forward, moved so he was right in front of her. Gently, his hands lifted her head—chin rising until their eyes met.

“I wouldn’t mind—”

“You don’t know that,” she protested thinly.

“I would not mind,” he repeated, firm but temperate. His thumb brushed over her cheek, gaze shifted a shade lower on her face. He licked his lips and smiled. “If the mistake was mine.”


End file.
